No One Mourns the Wicked
by fowl68
Summary: He was teacher, student, friend, classmate, cousin, brother, comrade. He was cursed and spat at and now, all that they can do is raise their glasses and say "Rest in peace." Because he deserves it.


**Disclaimer: **Don't own!

**Author's Note:** This is what I get for listening to Wicked while writing Itachi. Plot bunnies. Lots of them.

-/-/-/-

_No one mourns the Wicked_

_No one cries "They won't return!"_

_No one lays a lily on their graves_

_The good man scorns the Wicked_

_Through their lives our children learn_

_What we miss, when we misbehave_

_And Goodness knows_

_The Wicked's lives are lonely_

_Goodness knows_

_The Wicked die alone_

_It just shows when you're Wicked_

_You're left only_

_On your own_

_-No One Mourns the Wicked__** (Wicked)**_

-/-/-/-

The news trickles through the village. First one person knows. Then two, then four, then twelve. Most simply raise their glasses, saying, "Good riddance."

But there are a few who remember the person Before all of this. Remember the quiet teenager with the dry wit. Those people sit at home or perhaps on a bar stool, cradling a drink.

No matter who it was, no one can forget the first time they met him.

_The father introduced him proudly. "This is my son, Uchiha Itachi."_

_The teacher had crouched to look Itachi in the eye. The boy had bowed politely and greeted him, his voice hardly audible. It wasn't shyness._

Those who remember him as he was, as the student, the teacher, the classmate, the friend, remember him as having the older-brother exasperation for someone two years his senior.

_They'd been inseparable. Never without each other. It wasn't uncommon to find two dark heads bent over a schoolbook or to find a crumpled note in the garbage with two sets of handwriting on it. The first was all smooth lines and almost childlike in its neatness. The second was much closer to chicken scratch._

_It was to the point where, when you called one, you immediately tacked on the second name because they flowed together. Itachi-and-Shisui, come in for dinner. Itachi-and-Shisui, help me with this. Itachi-and-Shisui._

It's simple, effortless, to remember him as the older brother. The news that Mikoto was pregnant had been well-circulated. There had been congratulations and teasing jokes, mostly on Shisui's part.

_They'd been brought to the hospital, but it was boring for two children. They played cards and half-hearted hand games before resorting to quietly dosing on each other. They're groggily woken by a baby's wails._

_They had climbed up onto the hospital bed, curious and perhaps a little apprehensive because they didn't know what to expect. The baby was small and very pink, with a line of dark hair and very blue eyes that were slowly darkening._

_Mikoto had smiled at them. "You're a big brother now, Itachi."_

"_Me too, right?" Shisui had said. "I want to help."_

_Mikoto had laughed. "Of course. You too, Shisui."_

One remembers him first as someone in the background, someone who they only heard about in passing.

"_You're late again."_

"_I had to babysit my little cousin until his mom got back from the store!"_

_An arched eyebrow. "That's all you can come up with for an excuse?"_

"_It's the truth!"_

"_Why didn't she just go to the store later?"_

"_Apparently it was some kind of an emergency. I didn't ask for details. And really, the kid's old enough to leave him home alone, but she's paranoid."_

"_Leave it alone, Kakashi. I can vouch for him. I saw Mikoto at the store as I was on my way here. How is Itachi, Obito?"_

"_Easiest kid to babysit ever."_

_It made Rin and Minato-sensei laugh._

It was only almost eight years later that he was looking at the newest recruit, a slender thing all of thirteen years old with old, intelligent eyes and good manners.

_This recruit was early. Most of them didn't show up until the last second. _

"_Name?"_

"_Uchiha Itachi."_

_He'd glanced up, sure that he was hearing things wrong. There had been talk in the village, of course, about the Uchiha prodigy. But Kakashi didn't often listen to rumors. Not when they dealt with the Uchihas because he can still remember bright orange goggles and a wide grin._

_He couldn't stop the words coming out of his mouth. "Obito's cousin?"_

_Itachi had blinked in surprise. Kakashi was sure that Obito's name didn't often come up at family reunions. "Yes, sir. You knew him."_

_Itachi had a strange habit of phrasing questions as statements._

"_He was my teammate." Kakashi waits for the judgment, but it never comes._

He'd been a kind man, she remembers. She only has the one photograph of him, sitting in a frame on her kitchen wall. It's their graduating class photo and he's small and smiling faintly, Shisui's arm around his shoulders, free hand doing a peace sign.

"_Are you trying to clean the library out?"_

_She glanced up from trying to juggle the books in one arm while trying to retrieve the few that had fallen because she hadn't seen the curb. "If I am, I'm doing a very good job."  
>He'd smiled a little and picked up her books before proceeding to lift a good half of the stack from her arms. "Where do you live?"<br>"You're not lacking in confidence, are you?"_

"_I could give you these books back and _not_ help you carry them home if that's what you really want."_

"_No, no. I'll take the help." She'd said quickly._

_He'd chuckled and said, "Lead the way."_

The mission was a cruel one. He remembers being the only one in the ANBU common room when he'd come in, pale and looking like the world had decided to plop itself on his shoulders.

"_What happened?" He'd taken on Obito's role as unofficial older brother because sometimes, he could still hear the familiar voice whispering in his ear that made him remember orange goggles and snapping childish argument._

_ANBU have a powerful sense of secrecy and the one rule was never tell anyone the mission. Ever._

_Itachi broke the rule that night._

"_They want me to kill them. My family."_

_Kakashi was not a man without empathy. "What?"_

"_The Uchiha have been planning an uprising for ages, but they're getting serious about it now. They want to eliminate the threat."_

"_That's sick."_

"_I don't have a choice. They could start another war."_

_ Had anyone else been in the room, they would have seen both ANBU flinch minutely at the very idea. _

She remembers doing the autopsy, remembers seeing the too-pale, almost bluish tinge to the skin. She remembers filling out the report. Name: Uchiha Shisui. Age: 16 Height: 5'9 Weight: 157 lbs. Hair: Black Eyes: Black Cause of Death: Drowning (Suicide?)

_He hadn't come to the funeral. Not officially. But she saw him there, standing away from the crowds, a piece of paper clenched in one fist. _

He had been so much quieter without Shisui's constant presence. One was likely to forget he was there, he was so silent and still.

_There was only two of them left in the locker rooms. Both were in varying states of dress, having recently left the showers from washing away the grime of the mission. _

"_Hey, Itachi," He'd begun, only slightly uncertain. They were from two different squads and they hardly spoke to each other. "I was going to meet a few friends for dinner after this. You wanna join?"_

"_Are you sure, Hayate? I wouldn't want to impose."_

"_Of course. Besides, do you have better plans?"_

They had frequented the same civilian bookstore, run by the father of a friend of a friend. The owner knew them by name, his dark red hair graying. Pictures of his daughter were on the wall behind him. Her with Obito's arm around her waist, grinning at the camera. The team picture. A surprise shot of her with an ice pop in mouth.

"_I wouldn't have thought that you enjoyed reading plays so much."_

_Itachi had looked up from where he was perusing a book with a dusty binding as he leaned against one of the bookshelves. He'd glanced at the stack of books beneath his arm. "I wouldn't have expected that you would be the type to read romance novels, Iruka."_

"_They're for a friend." Iruka had lied. "She's sick and going into withdrawal because she can't get her supply of ten-cent nonsense."_

_Itachi had seen through the lie, as Iruka had known he would. But he didn't call him on it as so many would have. "Naturally. I apologize for my assumption."_

When the news—the terrible, horrifying news—came out, there had been drinks spit out or dropped, hearts suddenly being in the vicinity of people's stomachs, gasps of horror and disbelief as well as mutterings. That day, the mutterings began. The mutterings that never left him because they branded him Traitor.

_Asuma had been the one to tell him. They'd been having drinks as they played shogi outside of a tea place. A few sticks of dango lay beside the board._

"_They're dead. All of them."_

_The latter had been the part to surprise him. "All? Even the little brother?"_

"_He hasn't been found yet, but we're assuming that him too."_

"_Itachi wouldn't do that. He wouldn't kill his little brother."_

"_A couple of days ago, I would've agreed with you. I also would've said that Itachi wouldn't ever massacre his family."_

_He hadn't been able to say anything, hadn't been able to speak of the mission, of the sickening orders. "Why do you think he did it?"_

_Asuma had shrugged. "Maybe he snapped under the pressure."_

"_That doesn't like him."_

"_No, but he's been acting pretty weird lately. I heard that he took on like six Uchihas by himself because they accused him of killing Shisui."_

"_That's crazy."  
>"That's kind of my point."<em>

"_No, I mean the idea of him killing Shisui is crazy. You knew them. They were like brothers."_

"_And look at where Itachi's brother is now."_

It had been terrible, clearing away the bodies. Children, women, parents, aunts and uncles, no one had been spared. Until they found the small boy of eight lying in his parents' room.

"_Where is he?" Had been his first question._

"_Who?'_

"'_Tachi."_

_She'd swallowed hard because this would be the most difficult thing to break to the kid. "He's gone."  
><em>He'd faded from their memories for a while after that. They only remembered him on lonely, whiskey-flavored nights.

"_Think he's alright?"_

_Genma had looked sideways at him, his own glass half-empty. "Who?'_

"_Itachi. Think he's still alive?"_

"_Probably. We would've heard if he was dead."_

"_He was a good kid."_

"…_Yeah. He was."_

When he's seen again, he's wearing a cloak of red and black and he hasn't changed very much. Still slender, still polite, his eyes are still too old for the face that isn't as youthful as it had looked before. There are new lines on it, lines that shouldn't be there yet because the kid was only nineteen.

_He was standing beside a tall man whose skin was more than a little blue and who had a savage glint in his eyes. He recognized that glint, had come to associate it with shinobi from the Mist._

_They're a terrifying team, flawless in their fighting. He hadn't fought anyone of this caliber for years, hadn't even had to consider fighting the swirling red-ink eyes because Sasuke had not yet developed those eyes to even a quarter of this kind of potential._

He remembers the kid as politely curious, as too serious for his age. The young man standing in the hallway is still very much that kid.

_He knows that Itachi isn't trying. Not as hard as he should be if he really wanted Naruto. It's when the other Uchiha, the vengeful boy, is there that Itachi tries a little harder because Jiraiya knew that, somewhere, Itachi still loved his little brother._

The kid hadn't been a kid when he first met him. He'd been stained and splattered with blood until it filled his eyes—or so it looked like then. The young man had looked fragile enough that he'd wondered if he would break if he touched him.

_They were partners. His partner was a mentally unstable thirteen year old. _

_But that had changed. They'd both learned to work with each other until it became effortless. Until the kid began going blind and he'd needed assistance sometimes—not that he ever admitted to it because damn if the kid didn't have his pride—and then there was no one else to help. _

The memories are blending with the person in front of him because he can still see the man who had been his older brother, the one who had taken the time to walk with him from school, and the man who was the cold-blooded murderer.

_And suddenly, it's all one person, smiling gently with blood running from his mouth and his fingers on his forehead in a terribly familiar way. "This is it, Sasuke."_

While others might raise their glasses and say "Good riddance." and spit their curses on him, others raise their glasses to say, "Rest in peace." because if anyone deserved that, it was Itachi.

-/-/-/-

_Yes, Goodness knows  
>The Wicked's lives are lonely<br>Goodness knows  
>The Wicked cry alone<br>Nothing grows for the Wicked  
>They reap only<br>What they sow_

_Woe to those (Woe to those)  
>Who spurn what Goodnesses<br>They are shown  
>No one mourns the Wicked<em>

_No one mourns the Wicked!  
>Wicked!<br>Wicked!_


End file.
